graphix: spwilcen
If adult language, graphic scenes short of sex, or descriptions of bodily functions do not sit well with you, don’t read this piece. If you ignore my admonition, your indignant feelings are of your own doing. Redacted text doesn’t have the immediacy or sting; frankly, it’s not real.
Interstate
For a long time, I thought looking up the nostrils of a shotgun was the nastiest piece of business I’d ever handle.
Last night, I did a little reassessing. For the umpteenth time. With a shotgun it’s all there, right in front of you. Right now. Facing a steel mouth that can swallow your head whole unless it decides to blow it messily off your shoulders with a little puff of shotgun breath, your mind knows the whole deal instantly. You either move or don’t; circumstances fully appraised in the same heartbeat as understanding you’re probably in a world of shit. Right or wrong. If you’re right, you’re gold. If not, someone else tells your story. For me, so far, so good.
Kissy-face with a shotgun is immediate. There is no choice but to act or, the last time it happened to me, wisely, or purely serendipitously, not to act. But there’s worse. Sometimes you have to laugh out loud to yourself because if you don’t, the palpable fear gripping your gut will make you shit yourself.
Say what you want about pissing your pants. That’s nothing. You can end up with wet trousers from laughter. I’m not saying it isn’t so, but no one’s ever told me they laughed so hard they shit their pants. Passed a little gas, sure. Weak sphincters may weep a little those times, but not the real deal. Laughter ever unloaded the contents of someone’s colon? No.
Fear acing intimacy with a shotgun simply, maniacally, sits there. It waits. It builds. Nothing you can do about it. Turning it to anger if you can manage it, is temporary. It’s the unknown. The waiting. A nasty kind of helplessness. The shotgun? Not enough time for your colon to finish the initial squeeze then relax for an embarrassing discharge. Adrenaline is busy elsewhere. You might be too.
That more debilitating fear, is one that works on you, stays at it, until whatever it is shows up and fucks you over, or dissolves into nothing like a disappointing fart. That fear squeezes your guts like a tube of toothpaste, then relaxes. Then squeezes again. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what that suggests.
Working a ten PM to six AM singleton even though it was supposed to be against department policy found me sitting in the squad at the top of an Interstate on-ramp in the outhouse part of the county. Sitting and watching for the late-model whatever with four armed suspects. Impolite types who’d just visited a convenience store and managed sixty-five dollars, two six packs, a carton of butts, and a nasty goodbye to a night clerk who bled-out before medics arrived. Sitting there made me feel an unnatural need to piss.
That wasn’t the scary part. That need to shake Mr. Wonderful also comes when it’s two out in the ninth, runner on third and you’re behind a run as you step into the batter’s box. Or when you look down the aisle and see the loveliest lady in the whole goddam world walking in a white gown, carrying dorky goddam flowers on her way up to stand beside you.
But it all rolls around in your skull. Waiting and not knowing. You can’t plan. You sit there and think. It works at you. Gnaws at your insides. That’s the thousand coward’s deaths every hero suffers all the way up to the point where he’s not handcuffed by waiting, has no choice but to act, and does. Again, right or wrong.
Four perps, one clerk. Sounded fair to me. I got to think about it. Plan it. Re-plan it. Doubt myself. Maybe the clerk called one of the perps a name. Or he was out of soft pack butts. Or the beer wasn’t cold. Sixty-five dollars. Life gets cheaper all the time.
The sit-on-your-ass-and-think part ended when headlights passed the bottom of the ramp I was camped on. Those headlights pulled a late-model whatever behind them. Starting the squad’s engine, I also started a naked dialogue with the dispatcher.
“County. This is ten.”
The Interceptor was eager to burn fuel in what it would consider a delightful romp.
The radio squawked an unfamiliar voice. “Ten. This is County. Go ahead.”
Everything else in the whole wide-awake world died to listen to what my radio said.
“Got the perps at exit one eighty-five. Southbound. I’m in pursuit.” I thought it was my voice.
“Just keep them in sight.”
“Copy. They know. They’re hauling ass. I have to have lights.”
Forever later, the unfamiliar voice again, “Ten, we’re setting up a roadblock at one eighty-two.”
“We’ve passed one eighty-three.”
“Cars twelve and fourteen are a minute from one eighty-two.”
“No good. We’re coming up on one eighty-two now at a hunnerd plus.”
“Just keep them in sight, ten.”
“I’ll lose them.”
“We should have the exits covered.”
…
“County, coming up on one-eighty.”
“Copy ten…”
…
“County, shots fired.”
“All units, shots fired at pursuit.”
…
“Coming up on one seventy-nine. They’re going up the ramp.”
When they took the ramp, they also took a light pole and its concrete base. That spun their car around blocking the ramp about midway up. I stood on my brakes. The squad stopped at the bottom of the ramp. Not a lot of distance between us. The only light was a fire in the perps’ car.
“County, this is ten.”
“Go ten.”
“Suspects’ car crashed on the ramp. It’s on fire.”
At least one of the suspects was out and shooting. I couldn’t see anything but muzzle flash.
“Ten? Are you taking fire?”
“Affirmative, County.” The wonderbar took a shot in the red. Two sets of red and blue lights arrived at the top of the ramp. “Backup just arrived. Advise them suspects are out of the vehicle and shooting.”
The radio squawked. Four spotlight beams hit the suspects’ car. The perps shot at the cars at the top of the ramp. Things were complicated. The top of the ramp fired back. I took aim for the muzzle flash. It was a dicey proposition. The perps were between the good guys. The good guys had to worry over hitting the other good guys. The bad guys didn’t.
Then, the perps’ car exploded. No more gunfire from the perps. That meant nothing. It took over an hour for the firemen to put out the fire. All the while, every officer on the scene was alert for the appearance of two perps not thrown clear of the explosion that killed the other two. It was not until the next day the DB and fire department determined the missing two were incinerated.
Waiting for the wrecker to take my unit away and a free unit to take me back to County, the edge slowly wore down. Didn’t go away; wore down. It was all over.
Until the next time.
© SPWilcenski 2022
Ramblings 